


Of Secret Santas and First Year Muggle Born Hufflepuff Girls

by L_Morgan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, Friendship, Hogwarts, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 04:28:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/635117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/L_Morgan/pseuds/L_Morgan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas has come to Hogwarts in the form of an unlikely gift giver.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Secret Santas and First Year Muggle Born Hufflepuff Girls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jadis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadis/gifts).



Draco glanced up as the cacophony of wings filled the Hall followed quickly by the sound of squeals and laughter. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was alight with Christmas cheer; and its students enthralled in the mystery of the annual “Secret Santa.” 

He reached up as a standard brown barn owl dropped an oblong package above his head.

“Barmy bird,” he muttered as he intercepted the box just millimeters away from his morning porridge.

On the first four days, his Santa had appealed to his notorious sweet tooth, sending him a box of chocolate frogs, a case of blood flavored lollies, six pumpkin pasties, and a box of sugar quills. On days five through seven, the gifts got more personal, but still nothing that would give away the identity of his gift-giver: a very nice pair of green cashmere socks, a set of monogrammed cufflinks, and a set of white peacock feather quills. 

The last gift suggested that it was a Slytherin—probably Goyle, Pansy, Nott, or Zabini. However, he really couldn’t imagine Goyle or Nott picking out cufflinks, so then there were two. 

On days eight and nine, however, he’d received a broom servicing kit and a bag of old gold coins. The first gift counted Pansy out, as she wouldn’t know a broom servicing kit if it bit her in the arse and the second knocked Zabini out; he was too damn stingy. 

Daphne? Maybe. He glanced across the Hall at the only other three Hogwarts students who would have known about the peacocks and shuddered. 

He weighed the brightly wrapped box in his hand questioningly, ignoring the delighted reactions sounding around him; it was warm.

Instead of opening the gift, he sat it aside and sought out his recipient: Anne Something-or-Another. In a less charitable era, he would have called her a mudblood. Hell, less than a year ago, he might have been called on to kill her or to stand by and watch while his father did worse. Draco shuddered once more and took a sip of coffee in an attempt to steady his hands.

She was blonde and had expressive brown eyes. She was also a first year, something that made Draco’s post-acquittal life much easier. For while Draco had been fully acquitted, the Malfoy fortunes had not. And, for the first time in his life, he found himself on a very strict allowance—an allowance doled out not by his over indulgent mother, but by the particularly under indulgent Ministry. By one Arthur Weasley, to be exact, which, he was to understand—much to his chagrin—was why he got as much as he did.

It was fortunate, really, that Draco was Anne’s Secret Santa, as first year muggle born girls—well, let’s be honest, first year muggle born female Hufflepuffs—were extremely easy and inexpensive to buy for. First of all, they loved everything and everybody. And, second, they didn’t know that much about magic, so they were easily delighted.

Draco had sent her candy, hair ribbons, a set of self-inking quills, colored parchment, beads, perpetually blooming flowers, flying birds, a representation of the constellations as they appeared the date and time of her birth, a bracelet from the Malfoy vaults that had been destined for his sister if he’d ever had one, and, today, a scarf knitted through with heating and drying charms that his mother had sent him; it had cost the better part of a night and a trip to McGonagall’s office to figure out how to change the color from emerald to buttercup.

He glanced over just as she held it up to her friends, to a round of’ ooh’s and’ ahs’. He smiled inwardly, glad that she liked it. She rubbed it up against her cheeks that were tinged with pink. In some ways, she was delightful and—being a Hufflepuff—chances are she wouldn’t run screaming when his identity was revealed. Hufflepuffs, as the Sorting Hat once said, were nothing if not loyal.

“Aren’t you going to open that?” Blaise slid in across the table, carrying a large box of Bertie’s Beans.

Draco shrugged. “Should I?”

“You get a kick out of watching that little Hufflepuff open yours; it’s only fair.”

“Vested interest, Zabini?”

Blaise laughed. “I wouldn’t send my own mother galleons, Malfoy. You know me better than that.”

“Too true.” Draco took another sip of coffee. “So, apparently these gifts are supposed to work up to giving ourselves away. I was thinking about seeing if Father had an extra mask lying around. What do you think?”

“I think that bitterness doesn’t suit you. I also think….” Blaise sniffed at a bean before popping it in his mouth. “Mmm…” he closed his eyes in what looked suspiciously like ecstasy. “…tiramisu.”

Draco sighed. “Can you even try to focus?”

“Sorry.” Blaise grinned; if nothing else, he’d always been good at faking chagrin. “I think that you’re worried about her finding out that it’s you and that you’ve had a good time being nice.”

“Strike your words!”

“You’re not as bad as you think,” Blaise disillusioned as he took another bean. “Or, granted, even as bad as you used to be.” He swung his leg over the bench, grabbed his bag, and readied himself to go. “So open your present and see what Santa brought. You haven’t gotten any coal yet. See you in potions.”

Draco waved him away and reached for the oblong box. 

It was wrapped—not in brown paper, but in what he assumed was muggle gift wrap. Images of Santa or, more accurately, Father Christmas, looked out at him through a layer of snow flurries trapped in time. Tall and thin, wearing blue robes and carrying a walking staff, the old man looked surprisingly like Dumbledore.

‘Lovely,’ Draco thought glumly as he tore the paper carefully away and set it aside. It was an old Ollivander’s box; much like the one that his own very first wand had come in all those years ago. 

As he reached for the lid, the box jumped; Draco let out a startled yelp then looked around sheepishly. Fortunately, no one was watching.

Taking a deep breath—surely his Secret Santa wouldn’t have sent him something dangerous, at least not in such a public venue—he removed the lid.

Every sound in the room faded to nothing. It was as if he was standing in an open field after a heavy snow.

His wand. His Hawthorne wand. 

He reached for it with trembling hands, but then stopped. 

‘Harry Potter,’ Draco realized, glancing over to the Gryffindor Table. 

‘Harry Potter was his Secret Santa. Harry Potter had bought him candy and quills, and socks, and cufflinks, and given him a bag of gold dating back to the beginning of the House of Black.’

Harry Potter, who, now, at this moment, was laughing it up with the son of his parole officer and a witch who his mother’s sister had tortured to the point of near madness on the dining room rug. Harry Potter, who—at that very second—turned, caught his eye, and mouthed, “Happy Christmas.”

Draco reached down and stroked the beloved Hawthorne, dislodging a small piece of mistletoe from the red tissue in which they both lay. 

He glanced back up eyes wide. “Happy Christmas, Potter.”


End file.
